Sunday, December 14, A.D. 2008

Mariolatry

This evening, I had a discussion with a Protestant acquaintance of mine about religion. I assume that he is from a black Baptist background, but I am not sure. He asked what religion I was, and then he asked me if I worshiped Mary like the “Catholics” whom he knows. I responded that neither his Roman friends nor the Orthodox worship Mary, though we honor and venerate her. He further wanted to know if we had statues of her. I said that we have icons or images of her. He asked why we did so.

There are many possible responses to his questions, from scriptural passages (e.g. all generations will call her blessed) to reflection (she gave birth to and raised Jesus Christ), but I went the casual route and replied with a question of whether or not he respected his mother and had pictures of her in his house. If the saints are the family victorious, then doesn’t it seem proper to keep them in our memory and to show them honor?

In true low church American fashion, he said that the Bible tells us not to respect people differently but to treat everyone the same. I suppose that he was referring to Paul’s statement in his epistle to the Romans that God is no respecter of persons. I am no Pauline scholar, but I suspect that the modern radical tendency to demolish all distinctions is at work with such an interpretation rather than sound Biblical hermeneutics. It seems more likely that Paul means that there are no “privileges” in God’s justice. It cannot mean that God’s dealings with human beings are the same, as scripture, tradition, and experience show us that providence is highly customized to the individual.

Beyond God’s economy, such advice to humans is absolute madness and would be quite sensible grounds for discarding Christianity as an insane social malady. We are called to love everyone, but we cannot treat them the same way. Such irresponsible behavior would destroy society, and it would furthermore be a grave injustice. In my discussion with the Protestant, I gave the example of two men: Charles Manson and a physician who has spent his life working to heal others around the world, as those doctors in Médecins Sans Frontières. Think of what real equitable treatment of both men would mean. We would just as soon entrust a psychopathic murderer with the care of loved ones as we would a living example of the good Samaritan? We would hold them up equally as models for our children to emulate? We would be equally likely to allow them to stay as a guest in our house? You are just an idiot if you think that we ought to treat both men equally. It is a simple matter.

As Christians, we are called to love both—and this is in itself quite mysterious, as both men are not equally lovable. One standard Christian response to this obvious objection is that we are lovable because God loves us, not that we are loved by God because we are lovable. With men, we love lovable things—we respond as lovers to the good of things already in existence. In contrast, God’s love causes things to be lovable. Yet, God’s actions are not inconsequential; if we are loved by God, then that truly makes us lovable and valuable—in nature, due to God who creates us in love. In Augustinian excess, certain Christians go to extremes to avoid Pelagianism in rendering human beings worthless and in pretending that God’s actions have no relationship to the reality of God’s creation. They introduce a bizarre Manichean division in reality between God’s intentions and the natural world that he creates and sustains—it is one of the worst aspects of Reformation heresy.

We can see a similar relationship with baptism. In normal baptism, the water (through God’s grace) purifies us. Yet, in Christ’s baptism by John in the Jordan, the presence of Christ purified the waters. Yet, the waters truly were purified; we do not simply pretend that they were because of our respect for Christ.

So, if it is true that God loves all men equally, and I am not even sure that such is good doctrine, though it is widely believed, then I do not know how we can rationally understand it. For me, it is something that I cannot understand, and I simply trust that, if true, there must be a good reason for it that I cannot see. Perhaps, God’s love for us is for us as we should be—our idealized persons in conformity with his will. In such a sense, God’s equal love for us might make sense. Yet, it is a very dangerous road to tread when we begin to consider our idealized forms in the mind of God—what we should be—as our “real selves” in contrast to their particular manifestation, here and now, in what we actually are. Such was the way of the Cathars. Yet, it seems that this is practically what people claim when they state that God loves us all equally because we are all equally men made in his likeness—as if God only deals with us on the essential level and not as creatures struggling for our own perfection in history. Christianity is not Greek philosophy, even the best of it. The Gospel appears to concern the personal, not simply the universal, of mankind.

The Protestant disgust for Marian piety may be rooted in modern egalitarianism; the Reformation was the seed of the so-called Enlightenment. So, if we can safely discard that we are to treat everyone equally as if people really were equal—an intolerable falsehood—then our honor and veneration of Mary, the Theotokos, makes more sense. For she is the model human being, who represents for us the ideal human response to God—in humble, loving submission to his will of pure goodness. She is the chief personality in Jesus’ family, both by blood in Palestine two thousand years ago and by spirit, in the Church, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. From the beginning, Christians have honored her. It is strange and disturbing that so many heretical sects could develop that interpret Marian piety as mariolatry. I have no doubts that the Theotokos is far better than I am in spiritual development, proximity and communion with God, wisdom, purity, and in just about any other conceivable way. That someone should have the same disposition toward her as toward me is unsettling. However, I wonder how Protestants who object to the honor traditionally given to Mary would really respond to her presence. Perhaps, their foolish disrespect is all abstract nonsense. If a Calvinist makes it to heaven, how will he treat the Mother of the Lord? It is a fascinating thought.

My Protestant interlocutor asked me why it seemed to him, at any rate, that Roman Catholics treat Mary as if she were as important as Jesus himself. I told him that not even they really believe that, though some of their practices give such an impression to outsiders. I said that for the West and for us, Mary is a guidepost to God. We are to manifest God among men through our lives, and the Mother of the Lord serves as our role model. In praising her, we praise God whom her soul magnifies and in whom her heart finds joy.

Andrew has a theory about the Latins’ emphasis on Mary that gives the Protestants the impression of mariolatry. He thinks that after the Counter-Reformation, the cult of the saints in the West dwindled. However, the honor and respect given to the Theotokos remained. With such an occurence, Mary no longer appears as the champion leader of the Church victorious, being the preeminent witness of the redeemed Christian life among many. Instead, she represents the saints by herself. Thus, the respect and honor in the Christian community for the host of saints channels to her alone, and this imbalance makes her seem like an appendage to the Trinity among the Romans, at least to outsiders. I do not know how accurate Andrew’s theory is, as, until recently, popular devotion to the saints in the West continued. Maybe, he judges the West from the post-Vatican II environment that he knows. I am not sure.

In the sermon today, the priest talked about various titles given to the Theotokos. What struck me was the military imagery used in some liturgical poetry—our champion leader, invincible champion, might unassailable, and the like. I know that many academic feminists from Roman backgrounds are interested in the Virgin Mary; I wonder what they think of the Mary as field marshal of Christendom.

Protestants might claim that to see therein the Athena pagan impulse at work, and perhaps they are somewhat correct. Paganism is simply natural religion; pagan rites and beliefs spring from the human encounter with the world and with the divine in the world glimpsed rather dimly. I do not find the transition of popular pieties from paganism to Christianity problematic. Rather, I see it as a confirmation of the Gospel. With respect to the Hebrews, Christ came to fulfill the Law, not to replace it. I believe that something similar is at work universally; the Gospel redeems and transforms all human things, from reason to culture. Natural human religion and the popular expression thereof get baptized in Christianity. Jack Chick and his ilk fret over the moons of Isis and Artemis making it into Marian symbolism, whereas I see the hopes, yearnings, and strivings after God among the heathen completed in the fullness of time. Human beings are naturally awed by sexual purity (in itself and as a symbol of purity in general), by the life-giving power of pregnancy and of childbirth, and by the unfathomable tender love of a good mother for her children. Reflection from the dawn of time on such matters likely resulted in the pagan deities and the cultic observances attached to them. In the Theotokos, these primeval human concerns manifest in the center of God’s providential nexus; Mary is the Ground Zero of God’s plan of salvation, in all the primitive and archetypal imagery thereof.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, December 14, Anno Domini 2008
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Friday, December 5, A.D. 2008

Of Patriarchs and Bishops

Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and all Russia died this morning. Memory Eternal!

You can read his obituary on ITAR-TASS and in the Times.

I found Metropolitan Hilarion of New York expressing what I and other children of the Russian Orthodox Church thought when we learnt the news: “It is noteworthy that Metropolitan Laurus and Patriarch Alexy both reposed this year, having already achieved the main task of their lives.” For Metropolitan Lauras died seven months ago, and the re-establishment of communion between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad occurred last year, ending eighty years of separation due to Communist theomachy and to the repression of the Russian Church.

A council of all the bishops and of representative priests and laymen must elect a successor. It will be the first time that a united Russian Church elects a patriarch since the patriarchate was reestablished in A.D. 1917, with the election of Saint Tikhon. As such, we hope that it will finally put the Soviet years to sorrowful but instructive memory.

It is odd that the Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and the Orthodox Church in America all lost their head bishop this year.

Several weeks ago, I wrote on boring Church politics, where I mentioned that Church elections are not that important—no primate will succeed in betraying the apostolic tradition. Even Sergius generally safeguarded the faith. However, I also mentioned that the prospect of Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk as the next patriarch worries me; for I fear what headaches he would cause. I also wonder how strong the new bonds between R.O.C.O.R. and Moscow actually are—someone like Kirill may exacerbate tensions in the Church Abroad and cause more parishes to go into schism. Let us hope and pray that the council elects a godly man who will shepherd the Russian Church well.

Speaking of primates, I just read this week an interesting speech by the O.C.A.‘s new Metropolitan Jonah, given earlier this year when he was still an abbot, which concerns the role of bishops in general and primates in particular—“Episcopacy, Primacy, and the Mother Churches: A Monastic Perspective.” It is worth reading.

It is refreshing to hear a bishop of such standing speak frankly about issues, though he delivered them while still an abbot. His words about Constantinople are rather shocking—shocking that he actually said them; for everyone knows them to be true. I also appreciate the speech’s Christocentric message and its emphasis on the pastoral role—the telos, really—of Christian bishops. On the whole, it is an insightful and powerful message, and the O.C.A. is fortunate to have such a bishop on the eagle.

However, there is an element of Protestantizing within the O.C.A., possibly from the O.C.A.‘s acclimatization to the religious culture of the United States, as has most definitely occurred among American Roman Catholics . . . you know, the pope’s Calvinists. Metropolitan Jonah’s words in this speech remind me, at certain points, of anti-clerical rants among Protestants. In “The Episcopacy: A Monastic Perspective,” he sounds awfully close to Seventh Day Adventists. Self-criticism is important, but I fear that his dismissal of seventeen centuries of ecclesial life, with respect to the bishops, goes a bit too far.

Undoubtedly, it is easier to live the life of the Gospel as marginalized, persecuted fringe elements. When society becomes Christian, leaders—and regular folks—have to juggle the demands of their faith and the demands of survival in a political community. The inherent difficulty in managing this tension of responsibilities is what underlies Christians’ rejection of Christendom, from Tertullian down to our own day. Yet, such difficulty also indicates an opportunity, and it was this vision of a Christian polity that inspired some of the greatest men of the last two millennia. Saving one’s soul in an isolated cell has its own challenges, but it is not, and it cannot be, the only Christian life. With any scenario, from Diocletian persecution to imperial “symphony,” there are challenges, temptations, and blessings.

Metropolitan Jonah’s cheerleading of the O.C.A. is also somewhat unfortunate. He says that with the O.C.A.‘s autocephaly in 1970, all other jurisdictions became uncanonical. Yet, the whole situation, including, one could argue, that very granting of autocephaly, was uncanonical. The hellish complexity of the twentieth century is not easily reduced to the O.C.A.‘s fancied image. A truly autocephalous local national Church will only be possible in Western lands with the consent of all, or almost all, of its Orthodox Christians and of the other autocephalous Churches around the world. Political machinations are part of the secularization of ecclesial authority that Metropolitan Jonah’s speech condemns, and, yet, are we to believe that Moscow’s tome of autocephaly in 1970 should have magically cleared up the horrible mess that resulted from the Bolshevik revolution?

I do not wish to insult anyone from the O.C.A. Good, pious Christians dealt with the unprecedented crisis in various ways, and it would behoove us to refrain from judging one another. However, when the O.C.A. proclaims itself the real representation of Orthodoxy in the Americas, it implicitly states that everyone else erred in their handling of the twentieth century and that the appropriate, canonical choice for everyone now is to climb aboard the Syosset ecclesiological train.

It will take much time and maturity to rebuild a unified Orthodox structure from the wreck that the Communists wrought. American Christians who have drunk too much Samuel Adams, literally and figuratively, of the beer and of the man, need to focus their energy on building the true unity of the Church—in the Christian life, not in external administrative organs, while crying about self-determination and repeating the slogans of that wretched blasphemer Thomas Paine. Until Orthodox Christians in America put aside their ethnocentrism, their pseudo-papism, their pseudo-Protestantism, their progressive and American hostility toward tradition and authority, their wariness of monasticism and the ascetic life, and their loyalties to their ancestral homelands that they put ahead of the Church, we shall not see an American Orthodox Church, and that is a good thing.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, December 5, Anno Domini 2008
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Thursday, December 4, A.D. 2008

Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

Today on the Julian calendar is the feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, one of the twelve great feasts of the Church.

The non-canonical Gospel of Saint James, thought by scholars to have been written in the second century, describes the event as well as mentions other traditional accounts of the Virgin Mary’s life. In the seventh chapter, it reads:

She [Anna] cared for the child for months. When the child turned two years old, Joachim said, “Let’s take her to the temple of the Lord so we can relate the message we were given.” And Anna said, “Let’s wait until the third year, so that she will not seek her father or mother.” And Joachim said, “Let’s wait.” When the child turned three, Joachim said, “Let’s call the pure women of the Hebrews. Let them take up lamps and light them so that the child will not turn back and her heart will never be led away from the temple of the Lord.” And they did these things until they went up to the temple of the Lord. And the priest welcomed her. Kissing her, he blessed her and said, “The Lord God has magnified your name for all generations; through you the Lord will reveal deliverance to the children of Israel in the last days.” And he set her down on the third step of the altar and the Lord God poured grace upon her. She danced triumphantly with her drinks and every house in Israel loved her.

You can listen here to a talk by Fr. Thomas Hopko on the feast.

Posted by Joseph on Thursday, December 4, Anno Domini 2008
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Sunday, November 30, A.D. 2008

A Saudi Mosque in Moscow?

I have a lot of hope for Russia. While the West crumbles in its self-loathing, the nations that survived the Communist hell seem far more sane. Russia remains autocratic and dysfunctional, but I have little doubt that it will survive. Unlike Western Europeans, who seem content to watch their own people disappear from the world and have their populations slowly replaced by North African and Middle Eastern alien hordes, the Russians are at least trying to address their demographic issues.

Anyway, the following story confirmed my confidence in Russia’s rebirth:

“A Saudi Mosque in Moscow in Exchange for a Russian Church in Mecca?” by Paul Goble. Here are some selections:

The king of Saudi Arabia has announced that he is ready to support the construction of a mosque and Islamic cultural center in Moscow, a city with only four mosques for its more than two million Muslims. In response and probably to block this, Orthodox Christians in Russia have called for opening a church in Saudi Arabia. . . .

Given that Moscow has only four mosques – the same number it had at the end of Soviet times – but a Muslim population that may number as many as 2.5 million, Muslims in the Russian Federation were delighted by the offer and the attention from abroad it suggests. But many non-Muslim Russians were horrified that another mosque might be opened in their capital.

After the Saudi offer was reported, three Russian Orthodox groups – the Moscow section of the Union of Orthodox Citizens, the Radonezh Society, and the Byzantine Club – released an open letter to Saudi King Abdullah suggesting that there should be another mosque in Moscow only after a Russian Orthodox church was opened in Mecca.

Their appeal noted that “Saudi Arabia is building mosques in dozens of Christian countries” and then asked whether it would not be only just if permission were given to Christians to build a church within its borders for Christians living there, something Riyadh has been reluctant to permit (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=documents&div=835).

And in support of their argument, the three groups cite the comment of Jean-Louis Cardinal Toran, the head of the Papal Council on Inter-religious Dialogue that “if Muslims consider it correct to have a large and beautiful mosque in Rome, then it is equally correct for Christians to have a church in Riyadh.”

The Orthodox groups also argued that it would be “very important” to lift the restrictions now in force against Christians visiting the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina,” to all visitors to Saudi Arabia to wear crosses, and to create special courses about Christianity in general and Russian Orthodoxy in particular.

Moreover, they suggested that if the Saudis want to begin broadcasting their television programs to the Russian Federation and its Muslims, then “it would be just” to offer “Your subjects the opportunity to watch Russian Orthodox channels and thus to learn that Christians don’t believe in three gods, don’t distort the Bible and don’t pray to idols.”

I especially like the Orthodox suggestion for the Saudi king to offer, “Your subjects the opportunity to watch Russian Orthodox channels and thus to learn that ‘Christians don’t believe in three gods, don’t distort the Bible and don’t pray to idols.’” Any Christian who has had a theological conversation with followers of Muhammad quickly learns how mistaken they are about fundamental Christian doctrines. I wonder if Moscow will cave . . .

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, November 30, Anno Domini 2008
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Thursday, November 27, A.D. 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and a blessed Advent season!

It is tempting to dwell upon the imperfections of the world, but let us remember the most precious gift of being and let us be grateful for it. We have the great fortune to live in a beautiful universe and to be able to wonder at its splendor.

O Lord my Savior and my Master, I, Thine unprofitable servant, with fear and trembling give thanks unto Thy loving goodness for all Thy benefits which Thou hast poured so abundantly upon me, Thy servant. I fall down in adoration before Thee and offer Thee, O God, my praises.

Posted by Joseph on Thursday, November 27, Anno Domini 2008
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Sunday, November 23, A.D. 2008

What Could We Salvage in the West?

Back in my homeland for Thanksgiving break, I am surrounded by both the continuity and the ruins of German Catholic life. Throughout Cincinnati, there are abandoned monasteries and other religious institutions that have suffered from the Latin developments after the Second Vatican Council. I do not expect the forthcoming collapse of Rome, but I cannot help but think that her communion has become gravely ill.

I suppose that it is natural to concern myself with the ancestral religion. In my moments of fantasy, I even wonder what could be saved from the Western religious tradition if its flock ever turned en masse toward the Orthodox faith. I do not believe that such an unlikely event would occur—Western societies are more likely to become part of the Dar al-Islam than to return to the Orthodox faith of their distant ancestors. Yet, I am sometimes given to escapist meanderings of the mind—it is a coping mechanism that allows me to live in a civilization towards which a good deal of my soul holds contempt. So, I wonder what would it mean for the West to return to the Church.

Now, allow me to delve into my personal heresy here as I assert my agnosticism toward the ecclessiological status of the Latins. I do not claim to speak for the Church, and I do not think that there is any value in my private opinions on the matter, but I just cannot confidently dismiss the Latins. I definitely believe that they have developed some false and destructive doctrines. However, they have generally held fast to the apostolic faith, and their communion has borne much fruit during the last millennium. I am inclined to think of them as schismatics with cancerous ideas, but with the cancer relatively managed.

The West is complicated, as we should expect of a civilization and its religion. I think that all the Orthodox, Catholic elements are present in the Western tradition—the blood of the Church, to continue my anatomical metaphor—but these vital humors coexist with poisons. One can easily see this in ecumenical discussions between the Latins and us; for they are quick to affirm our positions with, “But we believe that, too.” For them, the great divide is only over papal authority and the filioque, which is why they tend to be optimistic about overcoming the schism. I suspect, however, that issues such as papal supremacy and the filioque are symptomatic of a much larger separation. As the Greek theologians say, the Western phronoma, or mindset, has abandoned the faith and whored among the heathen, having adopted an alien mentality in her lascivious exploits . . . I could not resist a reference to the Reformers’ pet image of Babylon. Anyway, the presence of the poison, or of an alien world view that has spawned for us the post-Christian world, does not exclude the presence of the apostolic life in the West, and this is the point that interests me. What can be saved from Western Christianity?

The Western rite has attempted to salvage the West’s religious patrimony, but it remains highly controversial after its one century in existence. Only two Orthodox Churches—Antioch and Russia—allow the Western rite. Moreover, there is no shortage of critics who denounce the Western rite as liturgical archaeology, reverse Uniatism, and a Trojan horse of occidental follies. You can read some of this criticism by priests Alexander Schmemann and Michael Johnson. I agree with the lex orandi, lex credendi principle, and we should carefully consider what the West has begotten. Should we allow the cancer to spread?

Of course, I do not pretend to know the best course to steer, but I am partial to allowing such seeking sheep to keep their customs, though my opinion is likely more founded on my esteem for tradition and hatred of loss and waste than on theological principles. Moreover, I have visited a few Western rite parishes, and the people, mostly converts from Anglicanism, are kind, pious Christian folk. Does their edifice have to be destroyed completely, or couldn’t we simply knock out and rebuild a few walls?

Over time, I think that the two liturgical traditions here might cross-pollinate into something more organically Western Orthodox—this process might even happen without the Western rite, as more and more people over the generations convert to Orthodoxy and as the Orthodox in Western lands absorb, digest, and transform the pre-existing religious culture.

So, what could or should be retained that is distinctive in Western Christianity? Please add your thoughts. Here are some of mine:

What about the Roman Easter candle? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have this candle be the one first lit on Pascha in the altar and then brought out to light the people’s candles?

Russians have already largely adopted Roman liturgical colors; I think that bright red Pentecost vestments make more sense than green vestments. The red can be a different shade than the red vestments associated with other feasts.

The Greeks have already started using stained glass. I do not think that stained glass should replace mosaics or wall iconography, of course, but I think that stained glass windows could complement them.

This is more controversial, but in addition to our indispensable monastic culture, there may be room for something like the West’s religious orders. I do not know if the Orthodox would ever consider Francis or Dominic as saints, but something like the Franciscan and Dominican communities, but under the authority of the local bishop, would contribute something to Orthodox life. If we ever establish schools, hospitals, and orphanages as they are needed in Western lands, such committed workers for Christ would help immensely.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, November 23, Anno Domini 2008
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Sunday, November 16, A.D. 2008

Bad Children in Church

Before I get to the topic at hand, let me congratulate anyone from the O.C.A. on the election of their new Metropolitan Jonah. Andrew sent me an e-mail earlier in the week to let me know about it, though he prefaced the letter with an apology; he did not want to give me the same impression that he received from his Latin friends with their flurry of “Habemus Papam” e-mails upon the election of Benedict XVI.

Andrew, I have worked with papists. I know many papists. Papists have been friends of mine. Andrew, you are no papist.

I have nothing contemplative or edifying to offer today; rather, I wish to complain about unruly children in the liturgy. I know that children are self-absorbed, irrational, foolish, appetite-driven humans in the making. I know that they are “our future,” and I know that Christ told his disciples to suffer the little ones to come to him. I do not have any problem with children walking around during the service or doing their little squirmy dances. I actually find well-behaved kids rather endearing, with their exaggerated signs of the cross, attempts at singing, and sloppy kisses.

However, it is one thing to welcome children into the temple and quite another to allow them to act like monsters. There are two fathers at the parish where I go who refuse to control their children. Both men seem very cordial and polite, but their kids disrespect the services and their fathers. One father has a boy, probably seven years old, who hangs off of his dad and torments the poor man throughout the liturgy. He grabs his father, fishes through his father’s back pockets, throws himself on the floor, and sometimes even mocks the services. The other father has two small children, a boy around five and a girl around three years old. The girl today was awful. She kept on throwing temper tantrums, whining, hitting her brother, smacking her father, stamping her feet on the ground, and generally acting like a vicious little ogre. At one point, her father tried to take away a blanket that she was using to hit her brother, and she pulled back, shouted no (in that vile bratty tone), and hit her father. When she wasn’t doing violence to her father or brother, she was whimpering in that blood-curdling fake cry to gain sympathy and attention, and her foolish father obliged. Like Pavlov’s dog, you cannot reward such behavior without reinforcing and encouraging it.

The whole time, I was trying to pay attention to the liturgy, but, as you can imagine, my attention was diverted to the little goblin at my feet. I can just hear some of you now—“Oh, if you had kids, you would understand”—no, I do not accept this empty argument. I have worked with kids for most of my life, and I see the results of poor child-rearing every day. Besides, there are scores of parents with well-behaved children who do not act in such a manner in the liturgy. They may twirl or wander around the floor or get uncomfortably close to burning themselves on candles, but they are generally orderly children. For children to act in such an unacceptable manner as the three kids previously mentioned, their parents must have long abdicated responsibility in maintaining order.

Both of these men mentioned appear as gentle souls. When their kids act up, they try to soothe them, hold them, and attend to them. Occasionally, the first father will straighten his boy by his shoulders out of desperation, though it never achieves more than a minute’s break from incivility. I think that they are sparing the rod and spoiling their micro-brats.

It is clear that the children are totally unaware of how their actions are disrupting everyone around them. I do not blame the children for that; awareness of others and of their needs is an attribute of maturity that even many adults do not have. However, the fathers are rudely allowing their kids to be a nuisance instead of trying to drill into their heads that their behavior is affecting others negatively. As they cannot control their kids, I was tempted several times today to lower myself to the little girl and tell her that she was acting inappropriately in church. I suppose that our Dr. Spock Dad might get annoyed—it has become fashionable for Americans to get offended when an adult corrects their children when they refuse to do it themselves. Everyone is entitled to be an arse, it seems, and that unalienable right is bestowed upon the youngest among us.

One of my co-workers and I have proposed a new public service campaign, “Have you beaten your kids today?” Stickers could be given out in governmental offices. “The more you know” commercials could be aired, detailing the practical benefits of beating misbehaving children. We could even get another ribbon for people to wear—blush red—the color of whipped booty flesh. People just do not beat their children enough anymore, when it ought to be a regular feature of child rearing. The Left has ruined pedagogy—with their concerns about violence and egalitarianism. Act like your child is a fully reared, rational, mature human being, and you set your child up to be despicable . . . in the meantime, he will become a dreadful little tyrant with a shrill piercing yell and an unconstrained will.

It is sentimentalist nonsense that holds that children are innocent angelic beacons of kindness and virtue. Augustine was more correct; even in the unreasonable demands of babes, one can see the fall. Without self-discipline, without reason’s command over the appetites, without a cultivated habit of considering others’ needs and wants, man is a monster. Yet, children are such men; they need the dictates of their parents to guide them and to mold them into rational beings who have been trained to work against their innate selfishness and self-absorption. Rousseau was wrong; such a process does not happen on its own. Left to their own devices, without guidance, most children develop little tyrants in their souls—spoiled brats who grow up to be insufferable selfish manipulating dragons.

I do not deny that there is such a thing as child abuse, but the West has gone much too far in the opposite direction. Some children have innate dispositions to please others or to do well. A verbal correction is all that is needed for such children. Others need consistent firm corrections, lest they unravel to the extent of the little demon in ribbons next to me today. Once they reach such a nadir, you have to bust their behinds—each and every time. Consistency is important—kids need to know how to behave and what the consequences will be when they do not behave well.

I understand that these fathers might worry about what such corrections might do to their children’s perceptions of the services. One does not want his children to resent being at church. Yet, if kids know what is expected of them generally, it would not become an issue for the liturgy. Beat them at home so that they behave in the grocery store, at the zoo, and in church. It is painful to smack your children, but think of it as an investment . . .

I lived in fear of my mother as a child. I think that such was probably a good thing. Parents should not be their kids’ pals; they should be their loving overlords. It is more important for your child to be good than to be pleased at any given moment; so, do what is necessary. As unpleasant as it might be, temporary pain, or deprivation (of goods such as toys or fun time), or whatever works may be the price for cultivating decent people later on.

Only somewhat related, in that children are like puppies who need good training, here is a Shiba Inu puppy cam:

Yes, they are adorable. Is this how parents see their wretched little spawn? Is this why they won’t correct them? News flash: puppies sometimes need newspaper swats, too.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, November 16, Anno Domini 2008
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Sunday, November 2, A.D. 2008

Boring Church Politics

Andrew was my O.C.A. news source, and without him around, I do not learn of the latest multi-jurisdictional news in a timely manner. So, I was a bit shocked to learn that Metropolitan Herman of the Orthodox Church in America retired at the beginning of September. Evidently, the O.C.A. has had a difficult time lately with administrative incompetence and corruption. The main financial official pocketed Church money or something like that, and a report released last month blames several bishops with the mess, including Metropolitan Herman. The Metropolitan was already experiencing health problems, too. So, Metropolitan Herman retired, and the O.C.A. will elect a new primate soon. There is talk on O.C.A. sites of getting a bishop from the Moscow Patriarchate to become the new metropolitan or of electing the Antiochians’ American exarch, Metropolitan Phillip, to head the O.C.A. in a move to integrate further the two jurisdictions.

What I find interesting in all of this is my general lack of interest. I am interested, but in the same way that I might be interested in a German election. Perhaps, it is due to my parochialism; it is somebody else’s issue. However, the leadership of the O.C.A. has an effect on Orthodox relations in the Americas, and as such, it does affect me. Yet, it does not affect me much.

I think that the real reason that I do not care that much for Church politics is my assurance that such elections are not very consequential. Christians elect shepherds, not architectural designers or messianic saviors. We already have human nature, and Christ has already shown himself to us. Thus, a bishop should lead the flock by tending to its needs and by keeping the wolves away. There is no need to create anew the sheep.

The passion and zeal involved in secular politics have manifested at times in Church politics, as well. During the controversies of the early councils, theological disagreements trickled down to the fish market. Cities had riots during the Arian controversy—riots! Yet, those days are long done. For the Orthodox, it does not really seem to matter who gets power where. The faith is the faith, and the election of Bishop Basil rather than Bishop Theodoret does not entail much of a difference. That is not to say that one candidate may not be a better overseer for the flock than another. However, “new directions” and “change” do not gain much traction in Orthodox Church politics.

The charismatic leader of a latest-mutation-Protestant movement may attack contemporary Orthodox sobriety as a sign of deadened faith and worldly complacency. He, instead, promises to stir things up in winning souls for Christ, while the crowd shouts “Amen.” Yet, I think that such whirlpools of human emotion are perhaps signs of things less promising than being on fire for Jesus. Insecurity often ignites heightenend passions, and theological insecurity is more likely to happen in the circles of the charismatic Protestant than among us—ironic, given their taste for salvational security. However, one could look to the Old Believers or the Old Calendarist movements for an Orthodox equivalent to this sort of insecurity—where the pious think that the world has abandoned God as society goes whoring after idols. The twentieth century was a heavy cross for Orthodox Christians, given the tyranny of Communism, the stresses and persecutions that occurred during and followed the Ottoman Empire’s disintegration, and the onslaught of secularism throughout the world. We, therefore, do see some signs of stress, especially among those who worry about ecumenism. I also am concerned about secularizing and modernizing forces—you can detect their mischief even in Orthodox circles. However, the threat is insignificant compared to what is happening in other religious traditions. Consider how the upheaval of the 1960’s disturbed the Latins—where the immovable appeared to have moved itself. The confusion of that era remains to this day. No similar trauma has happened to the Orthodox; the real threats were external, while the inner threats were minimal. In Orthodox Church politics, nothing is at stake. Our interest should be in living lives modeled after Christ, and theological stability facilitates such.

That is not to say that I am hunky dory with the state of affairs. Constantinople almost always makes me wince; the latest gathering of primatial bishops there was nauseating in its international N.G.O. jargon. The petty turf battles between Moscow and Constantinople, among others, are disheartening. The creeping secularization of the Greeks and the Westernizing of the Arabs in America are painful, too. I am concerned about Moscow, especially now after R.O.C.O.R.‘s reconciliation with the M.P. About half of the statements issued by Moscow’s external relations bishop Kirill strike fear into me when I consider that he could be the next patriarch. For example, consider his meeting with Castro:

Speaking about the recent consecration of the first Russian Church in Cuba conducted by Metropolitan Kirill, Castro noted that the capital of his country “has been enriched with a church worthy of a prestigious Russian Orthodox Church.” According to the Cuban leader, it is an irrefutable proof of Cuba’s respect to “one of the fundamental principle of human rights, which is consonant to the profound and radical socialist revolution.”

Of course, this is Castro’s spin on their meeting, but it makes me wonder. Perhaps, Kirill is merely following in the footsteps of Byzantine diplomacy, but I suspect much worse when he speaks like a Hegelian or a postmodern “multipolar” multiculturalist. I start to worry about the Soviet Man’s intellectual formation and how such may spell trouble for us long after U.S.S.R. There are many legitimate critiques of the West from an Orthodox perspective; I certainly do not expect a Russian bishop to extol capitalism, liberalism, and the American way. Yet, such criticism should ring closer to Saint John Chrysostom’s sermons rather than to the language of the Marxists. Solzenitzen was no cheerleader for Western society, but he spoke against its flaws as a man with an Orthodox phronema. I expect no less of our bishops; it is their job to articulate such a vision to their people.

Anyway, I am not oblivious to the dangers of electing unworthy men to the episcopate. However, such dangers seem quite remote. Constantinople is no longer the standard-bearer that it once was, and Kirill is, as I understand it, on the fringe within the Russian hierarchy. The renewal of Orthodoxy in the lands that survived theomachy is a promising sign for this generation, and if the hell of the twentieth century could at most muster up the so-called “Pan-Orthodox Congress” of A.D. 1923, then I think that it is safe to say that widespread apostasy will not happen anytime soon.

No, Church politics will remain boring. Let us entreat the Lord that they remain so.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, November 2, Anno Domini 2008
Orthodoxy • (0) Comments • Permalink

Sunday, October 5, A.D. 2008

Religion of Last Resort

I started Arimathea largely because Andrew is no longer a daily fixture in my life. For many years, when I encountered something ridiculous or profound, or when I had eureka moments while doing some mindless daily ritual or chore (especially showering, like Archimedes of old), I could process the inner dialectic with my very own Personal Socrates. However, Andrew has returned to the Motherland, and I cannot badger the weasel-owning fellow too much from afar.

Well, some of you may know that I have long struggled with religious matters, and I plan to discuss these issues on this page. I’ll begin with a reaction to a rather obnoxious blog entry that I read a couple of days ago—one that certainly would have ignited an annoyed (and for Andrew, likely annoying) rant over channa saag at Union Station. What interests me in the entry is one of its comments.

The blog entry is titled, “Western ‘Eastern Orthodoxy’ as Boutique Religion.” In it, the writer expresses his disgust at American converts to Orthodoxy who have rejected their occidental religious heritage in favor of exotic incense that is merely religious escapism. I suppose that he means Orthodoxy is not as engaged in the world as Rome is, and hence is it is fantastically escapist in not facing the real world. However, as I am not a regular reader, I really do not know what he means. If such is his attitude, then he expresses the secularism inherent in many Western Christians, where the kingdom of God really is of this world in the terms of this world.

You may know of the Grand Inquistor interogation scene in the Brothers Karamazov where the cardinal charges Christ with the failure of the gospel. Dostoevsky is simply astounding in his insights—and here as elsewhere he illustrates the chasm between Orthodox Christianity and the modern world, exemplified by the cardinal’s worldly religion. Not a few papist apologists find offense here and throughout Dostoevsky’s work, which is understandable . . . that whole “counterfeit Christ” business and all. I suspect that the cardinal’s position does not exhaustively reflect Western Christians, but I do think that the religion of horizontal mammon that he presents is pervasive in the West.

However, the piece from Dostoevsky’s novel is not simply a condemnation of secularism, under or without the banner of the cross. It invokes difficult questions, and the cardinal is not a fool to pose them. Clearly, the Roman prelate has substituted another religion in place of the gospel, and as such he is guilty of mangling the Christian message. Nevertheless, his accusations put Christ on trial, in the narrative and in idea. Is the Christian life possible? Is it even good, or, as Nietzsche claims, is it a disease of weak spirit? Here is an honest question for a honest heart—could a truly Christian society full of truly pious citizens survive in this world? If you protest and say that God’s people will suffer in a world of evil and that we live in a fallen world, then consider the burden of evidence that crashes upon you. For you ask men to live according to an ideal, the evidence for the goodness of which is utterly lacking in the world that we know, when such a life incurs clear harm. I am not proposing amorality or an absence of values or goods, but I am simply questioning the goodness of a system that, if practiced perfectly, would bring doom upon its practitioners.

In the sixth book of Plato’s Republic, Socrates speaks of the few true philosophers that come to be in society:

Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant: perchance some noble and well-educated person, detained by exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting influences remains devoted to her; or some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he contemns and neglects; and there may be a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to her;—or peradventure there are some who are restrained by our friend Theages’ bridle; for everything in the life of Theages conspired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him away from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hardly worth mentioning, for rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been given to any other man. Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; and they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts—he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes.

I have always found this passage quite powerful—and tragically true. What can the good and wise man do in the midst of wolves? As we see over and over again in history, there is an answer besides hiding from the storm . . . an answer that both Socrates and Jesus gave to their fellow men. Was it right? If it was right, should we be happy that God rules the universe in such a way? I do not deny that there are plausible responses to these questions, but they are legitimate questions. They lie behind the impious effrontery of the Grand Inquistor, the rant of Thrasymachus, and the anguished attempt to escape nihilism by Nietzsche.

Returning to the angry blog entry where the writer makes an almost religio-racial attack on Orthodoxy:

Eastern Orthodoxy will never, ever, ever take root in the Western soul. At best, it can sprout shallow roots until the next spiritual fad or tent revival comes along. The soul of the West speaks Latin, prays to statues, and fidgets with rosaries. The soul of the West is covered with side altars, wears lace, and sports a lop-sided birretta. And the soul of the West doesn’t particularily care what was done one thousand years ago, or whether such-and-such a practice was precisely what the early Church did.

Of course, this is nonsense. If the gospel is true, then culture’s importance lies in its ability to facilitate our growing in Christ—in our theosis. While I am ever ready to support particularity, heritage, and the value of one’s own, transcendent matters trump such chauvinistic concerns. It really comes down to who is right, if anyone, in proclaiming revelation. If the Orthodox Church is Christ’s Church and if the gospel is true, then one quickly ought to forget about lace and statues and whatever else and cling to the thing needful, regardless of one’s pedigree. As the Lord said, “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.” Eyesight is an uncontestable good, and yet it would be better to forego such a great good for the sake of a higher good. Consider then what we should say about lesser goods—the idols of our fancy if they keep us from the truth.

Anyway, what interested me in this entry was not the T.F.P. triumphalist drumming but one of the readers’ comments:

I remember reading something that Owen (the ochlophobist) wrote in one of his “uberfromm posts” about how a surprising number of converts to Orthodoxy apostasize from Christianity all together. Orthodox apologetics effectively cure them of Evangelical delusions and they also refute Roman assumptions very convincingly (for some people at least). However, when they turn around and see how freaking culturally irrelevant this little Greek/Slavic/Arab sect really is and how it is dying in many parts of the world, they start to realize that maybe the whole “invincible church” story is just that… a story. At times I wonder whether they are really all that misled.

I found this comment very provocative. I do not think that anyone who rejects Rome would be moved by the “freaking cultural irrelevance” of Orthodox people. If anyone were so moved by such secular concerns, he would have swum the Tiber. With Boethius, we should note how Fortune is a capricious woman, and the winds of history blow in different directions depending on the season. Tomorrow’s “cultural relevance” could be more like the eighth century than the twentieth, and there is good reason to suspect that it will be so. Yet, such is not important to someone who converts to Orthodoxy after being disillusioned with the Reformation and inoculated against the counterfeit Christ of the Grand Inquisitor. For such a person, and I should switch to the first person here, Orthodox Christianity is the religion of last resort.

With Peter, I wonder, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, October 5, Anno Domini 2008
Orthodoxy • Atheism and its allies • Protestantism • Roman Catholicism • (0) Comments • Permalink